Yeah, I just don't get the contingent that desperately wants a downtown park in KC.

The Cardinals will always have one on pure inertia alone. But that doesn't make it a good idea.
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Man.... you can feel it in the air once the gameday crowd starts to dissipate and the purge characters come out down there. Usually by midnight i try to be where I'm going or in a car getting to where I'm going.

And it gets worse every year.
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There's absolutely nothing wrong with Kaufman's location. If they made an effort to develop the area it would be fantastic
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I think it was someone in the Royals thread that basically called me a liar for saying something similar when I was warning them of downtown parks..them the parade happened...
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Downtown STL could be amazing. You just need to deploy a dozen Robocops to patrol the area.
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It's a cheap shortcut that 2nd tier franchises try to pull to make themselves feel 'big time' without actually acting like it.

The Pirates are the most blatant example but others have as well. "Well we aren't a very good organization and we're not going to carry ourselves like major players in the industry, but if we get a nice new stadium we'll sure FEEL like we are..."

Not terribly dissimilar to folks that take out 7 year loans to afford a base BMW 3-series.
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I can give you 493 reasons why you should take out that BMW loan
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DJ,

What’s up with this? Payroll goes down a little and the players want to panic? Why?

Player spending among MLB clubs is down from $3.9 billion last winter to $2.8 billion this offseason, per Spotrac. Casey Mize, the Tigers’ player rep, said Monday night’s meeting was “at times” intense.
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Nobody to blame but themselves.

The pitchers have all gone ham finding velocity and striking guys out so none of them last and in the end the bullpens are what matters in October. And since they all throw 100, everyone Ks like crazy swinging for the downs and hoping to get a mistake. Well if that's all you do, professional hitters don't matter much - just give me batspeed and athleticism from 25 yr olds.

Oh, and the regular season is so diluted that 84 wins probably gets you into the playoffs where you can have some Diamondbacks run and win a pennant.

So why spend in FA? The marginal return is complete ass, especially in the middle tiers.

MLBPA is panicking because they aren't sure what's going to change any of this other than the occasional massive FA class (next years will be pretty huge, for instance).

The answer for the vast majority of these guys remains trading a hard cap for a spending floor. That's going to actually bring more money to the guys in the middle. But they've cut their own throats in the name of making a dozen guys rich every off-season while the rest of them pick up scraps.
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You actually think the players would go for a salary cap if there is also a floor?

I understand your point about the majority going for it because they benefit from a floor. The last NFL/players agreement was lobbied hard against by all the NFL stars but the regular joe NFL players pass it because it benefitted them.

All baseball teams would benefit from a cap and floor. Maybe even get the vast majority of fans to watch another game besides their team.
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I really don't see future generations even being interested much in this sport. Easily the most boring live.
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No.

But they should be.

It's a dogmatic refusal to consider it (along with a set revenue split; something they've also been caterwauling about) that is doing the rank and file MLB player a disservice.

They've been sold a false bill of goods for the vast majority of them. "Play out your 6 years and you'll be 29 years old and ready to get paid for another decade...."

Aging curves are a thing again. Teams have gotten smarter. If they were to allow for a hard cap they'd likely get support on the revenue split, spending floors and maybe even get to FA in 5 years (probably not 4). It's a MASSIVE bargaining chip and they won't even consider it.

And hell, maybe it wouldn't work in MLB since so much of teams revenue is tied to local rights deals (rather than national) so there's have to be substantially increased revenue sharing and big revenue teams may decide the juice isn't worth the squeeze at that point.

But they're silly for not even putting it on the table.
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Not really a Cardinals specific post but how many casual baseball fans do you think know the season started in the middle of the night and is officially underway? Hell, I fashion myself as MORE than a casual fan and even I had no idea until I was scrolling Twitter at 4am and saw a few of the baseball writers I follow discussing it.

Does the MLB have 3rd graders or octogenarians running their marketing department? Either makes sense but nothing else really does. And for a multi-billion dollar entity it continues to blow my mind how freaking bad they are at promoting their sport. And this isn't even getting into the fact that its STILL, years into the age of streaming, nearly impossible for entire markets to simply watch their own hometown teams freaking games on television. Just asinine and it's like they don't even try to get better at it! This isn't some new issue that snuck up on them. I'm closer and closer every year to not even looking at box scores anymore.
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It's only started for the Dodgers and Padres because they are playing in Korea. Every other team is still playing spring training games. Opening day is March 28.
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Fair enough but the overall point still stands.
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